


Temple of the Eastern Queen

by MSaga



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23643844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MSaga/pseuds/MSaga
Summary: ATLA meets Indiana Jones. Zuko responds to a spirit sighting in his ongoing search for the Avatar, two and a half years after being banished. Naturally, things go wrong from there.
Kudos: 5





	Temple of the Eastern Queen

Zuko never understood his luck.  
Three years of searching the world for the Avatar, lost only one hundred years ago, and nothing.  
One week of responding to an alleged spirit sighting that might have ties to an old Avatar legend, and here he was, hanging over a pit trap in the Lost Temple of the Eastern Queen.  
A temple which was, supposedly, in the east. Not the southwestern regions of the Foggy Swamp, otherwise known as his current location.  
The Temple had been lost for five-hundred years, ever since the reunification of the Earth Kingdom destroyed the Eastern Queen’s power base in order to raise up the Western King, these days known as the Earth King.  
While it was fascinating to have proof of how far to the East her lands had once extended (he was going to have to reorganize his scrolls from the time period, several attributed to Chin’s court likely came from the Eastern Queen’s, which made so much more sense), Zuko felt he could have lived without discovering it himself. 

The report claimed a young boy wandered away from his mother and was lost for the next two days.  
he mother got the entire village to search with her, but nothing was found. Since the village itself scraped by just outside the southwestern rim of the Swamp, the local Fire Nation Outpost wrote the kid off as just another victim of the Swamp’s mirages.  
However, two days later, the child stumbled back out of the swamp and ran straight to his mother with a truly insane story of where he had been the past two days. 

According to him, he followed a man dressed in heavy green scholar’s robes as he walked along a clear path surrounded by a flowering garden. The guards searched the spot the child said the path began at many times, but still found no evidence of anything even remotely resembling a path.  
Forget about finding a flowering garden, anything that flowered in the swamp was almost guaranteed to be hallucinogenic or poisonous.  
The guards didn’t even try to find those.

When Zuko came through almost a month later, with two and a half years of responding to spirit reports in the name of Avatar hunting under his belt, he found little more.  
Where the child said the path started, nearly a hundred yards away he found a few broken traces of what may once have been bricks.  
More importantly, he pulled a scarf over his mouth as he investigated the flowers of the surroundings.  
Much to his surprise, none were emitting any detectable hallucinogens.  
No evidence of any kind of garden was found in the area, but when he reached the main village, Uncle was cheerfully chatting with the local elders about kids these days and local folktales.

Most notably, the Queen’s Garden.

According to the elders, who from the looks of them were older than sand and generally every bit as interesting, the legend Zuko had heard about was what they called the Tale of the Queen’s Garden.  
Back when the Eastern Queen reigned, she held power not only because of her mighty talent in Earthbending, but also because of her status as the Avatar’s consort.  
It was said she planted an enormous maze, easily shifted by either her or her lover, in order to prevent others from spying on their trysts.  
The maze was made from only the rarest of plants of the time.  
Gilded lilies, pearldrop willows, Venus flytraps…  
Even the gargantuan tree at the center of the swamp was said to have once been a part of the Queen’s garden, though whether the garden sprung up around it or it was planted on the outskirts as a shade over the royal tombs was a frequent topic of debate by the village elders. 

Who were still arguing and rapidly increasing in volume and threatened violence. 

In front of their prince.

In front of their Crown Prince, who was already tired from the searching earlier and whose headache was rapidly worsening from their screeching.

Uncle placed a hand on his shoulder and calmly suggested  
“Prince Zuko, why don’t you return to the cabin? The headman said he would leave the historical maps on the table in there like you wanted. I’ll be along in a minute, these two were just telling me about a local version of white jade tea from the silver lotuses.”

At that, the two elders stopped their screaming to say,

“Ah, yes. The problem is, unless perfectly prepared, it tastes as though the water was burnt. When properly done, however, it’s very relaxing!”

Zuko walked quickly away from the mad old men’s tea party.

Really, did Uncle always have to track down every tea drinker in a hundred miles every time they stopped?

At least someone in this hole was sane, he thought as he compared the past mapping efforts with his own findings.  
The maps may not have been the best, being mainly landmark-based- and impermanent landmarks, at that.  
How was he supposed to tell where ‘Lee’s biggest mulberry bush’ was today when that Lee died two hundred years ago?

Still, from the general shape of the tree line and records of crumbling ruins occasionally spotted deeper in, Zuko located the general area most likely to contain a former walkway.  
Trying to determine who the child followed was both easier and harder.  
While the fall of the Eastern Earth Empire resulted in the destruction of most of their records, the rest were taken into the Western Earth Kingdom’s archives. There was no chance Zuko would be sneaking into Ba Sing Se anytime soon, much less for something as small as a list of past courtier’s names, but luckily, the legend mentioned someone who fit the description.

The Queen’s personal assistant, a well-bred young man by the name of Meng Hao, known as her right hand in the palace, but more importantly to the legend, as the one who would lead visitors into the maze, keeping them carefully away from the trysting Queen and her lover.  
He was described most poetically as dressed in the finest jade, with a mind even finer, who could lead you in circles and out the other side without even realizing you entered the maze.  
Whether he would lead you through the maze due to his own kindness or the desire to lead intruders into the more sadistic traps guarding the main palace, the legend did not say.

Zuko rather hoped he would not be forced to find out.

Given his luck, he wouldn’t bet on it.


End file.
